


glassy sky

by sylphh (icelandicc)



Category: Tales of Zestiria
Genre: Gen, recovering is hard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-30
Updated: 2018-07-30
Packaged: 2019-06-18 20:11:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15493743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icelandicc/pseuds/sylphh
Summary: maybe his tears would sprout willow trees that would weep in his stead.





	glassy sky

Mikleo was tired. Not like the blissful, fulfilling kind of tired that you get at the end of a busy day, but the heavy, dark,  _ melancholy _ kind of tired. The kind of tired that made him want to curl up and sleep for a thousand years and just forget the world.

Numbly, he’d headed back to Elysia with the others. Numbly, he’d declined their offer to come with them.  _ Not now, not now.  _ Numbly, he’d avoided the piercing gazes of the Elysians. They understood. They felt it too. They had questions, questions that Mikleo didn’t have the heart to answer.  _ Not now, not now. _

He retreated into the warm familiarity of Sorey’s house, blinking away tears at his friend’s well-loved books scattered and trampled upon and  _ violated _ . Pages were torn out, the notes Sorey had dedicatedly inked were smeared, most unreadable. Bookmarks were discarded, spines were broken. Mikleo saw some of Sorey’s favorites among the wreckage.

“The Shepherd and the Dragon” a mythology book and the starting point of much imaginative pretend-play when he and Sorey had been children. 

“The Legend of the Seraphim” Seraphim from a human’s point of view. Meant to give Sorey a deeper understanding of humanity and its perspective.

“The Remaining Records of the Era of Asgard” history; Sorey’s personal favorite area of study.  _ Their _ personal favorite area of study.

Mikleo felt the tears come unbidden, warm and wet against his cheeks, but they felt so far away, as though he was watching himself cry from outside of his own body. Slowly, he lowered himself to the ground, kneeling among the disheveled papers and clutching their Celestial Record to his chest. 

Mikleo breathed in the scent of old books shakily and let out everything he’d been holding in for the past month. The worry, the fear, the regret, the guilt, the dread, the pain, the  _ grief. _ It felt like a dragon was closing its jaws around him; he was suffocating. Every memory of Sorey’s smile ( _ guileless bright warm _ ) and his voice ( _ teasing excited determined _ ) and his eyes ( _ green green green _ ) came rushing back. It felt like someone had kicked him in the chest, all the wind flew out of him and he choked on a sob that had built up in his throat and he  _ cried. _

* * *

 

Kyme and the others came. They didn’t ask him what had happened, only closed their eyes and smiled at him like everything was okay and a part of him hated them for it. Everything was  _ not okay _ .  _ Nothing  _ was okay, Sorey wasn’t here and he wasn’t with them and he was gone gone  _ gone- _

“-Mikleo,” Natalie shook his shoulder. Mikleo blinked himself back to reality. He was on Sorey’s bed. He’d spaced out again, as it seemed.

“I’m fine.” He lied. It had become his favorite lie, recently. Default. And it came so naturally to his lips that he almost surprised himself. Natalie frowned at him.

“You keep saying that, but I don’t think you are, Mikleo.” Natalie offered him a hand. Mikleo took it. He stared past her. The statement hung in the air like a dark cloud, but Mikleo swatted it away with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“I’m going out.”

“Out?” Natalie tilted her head. Mikleo nodded. Natalie frowned.

“Please… at least come back before dinner time.”

Right, dinner time. The time to gather and eat. Like humans. There was only one reason the Seraphim had adopted that tradition. Mikleo swallowed around the lump in his throat.

“Sure thing.” He smiled weakly. 

He didn’t want to admit it, but he was slipping out of reality. It was like the universe was holding him in its claws and he was gradually fading into its body, losing the tether that anchored him to the earth. He stood up shakily and made his way to the door. 

He wouldn’t be gone long, no. He would douse himself in river water and stand under the dying sun until he felt like he was ascending, and than he would remind himself that someone was going to be waiting for him, one day. The future was so far away, but it was there, like a dove with an olive branch. He smiled a little harder and swung open the door.


End file.
